Video Games

[Lago PARANOIA]

So how come Nintendo is the only company turning a profit even in hard times in the industry and more importantly how come Sony and Microsoft aren't copying this strategerie?

[Ganbare Gincun]

So how come Nintendo is the only company turning a profit even in hard times in the industry and more importantly how come Sony and Microsoft aren't copying this strategerie?

If I had to take a guess, it's probably because Nintendo essentially updates and repackages the same selection of games whenever they release a new console. The game mechanics and graphics are updated, but everything is similar enough to the last generation's version of the game that it all seems very comfortable and accessible. New games are carefully crafted in order to meet the standards of their predecessors in terms of both quality and accessibility. Even if third party releases for their systems are less then stellar, so long as the core Nintendo game lineup is solid, they are still going to be able to turn a profit. They also have multiple game systems in production simultaneously, all of their systems are cheaper then what the competition has to offer, you can usually play your old games on their new systems, and they haven't killed the Pokemon cash cow just yet. They have a lot of vectors for incoming cash flow that their competitors just don't have access to.

Sony would be in a much better position in the video game industry if they actually focused on releasing a video game system with a solid lineup of quality games instead of an overpriced Blu-Ray player with some "video gaming stuff" stapled on as an afterthought. The fact that they burned up millions of dollars "winning the Format War" by paying hefty bribes to Hollywood and selling PS3s off at a massive loss didn't help their bottom line much either.

[Koumei]

The game is advertised as being about 10 hours long: way too long for one long session

Now, given your later rant, I see how this is a bad thing, but I wish to ask: who in their fucking right mind pays money for a game that lasts ten frigging hours? What the fuck?

I'm currently at 130-ish hours in Disgaea 2, and I still have a few endings to unlock and a lot of hidden content and battles.

Also, I like how Ganbare Gincun basically says "Because Nintendo just churn out endless Pokemon games and the suckers keep buying them." but doesn't make it sound like a bad thing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I had to take a guess, it's probably because Nintendo essentially updates and repackages the same selection of games whenever they release a new console. The game mechanics and graphics are updated, but everything is similar enough to the last generation's version of the game that it all seems very comfortable and accessible. New games are carefully crafted in order to meet the standards of their predecessors in terms of both quality and accessibility.

This sounds pretty reasonable, actually. I can't think of any 1st-party Nintendo game that gets out-and-out reviled or hated. For all of the shit we give Mario about appearing in every fucking game possible, most of his games are really good.

Unlike, say, the Final Fantasy and Sonic the Hedgehog franchises which are starting to get (have?) reputations of churning out mediocre games or out-and-out crap.

[Maxus]

Let's see...

Nintendo has...

Mario (which are usually high-quality and really fun games these days; poking fun at its own history turns out to work really well.)

Zelda

Metroid (sort of. Not as extensive as the other two, but it's making a comeback)

Pokemon (oh dear God, I just realized I remember when Pokemon came out. They must have made millions on this franchise...)

The Smash games

And Sony has...well, let's see...

Final Fantasy

In the PS2 days, lots of 3rd-party support and cool CRPGS.

And Microsoft has...

...halo lol?

Still, if I had to get a next-gen, I'd probably go for the Xbox, for the games like Bioshock.

[Lago PARANOIA]

For Nintendo, you're also forgetting:

The Wars series, especially Advance Wars.

Donkey Kong, though they seem to be on a backburner right now. Still, during the 16 and 32-bit era DK and Diddy were moneymakers.

Nintendogs is probably going to rear its head again in the future given what a surprise hit it was for the DS.

Fire Emblem series. Like, duuhhhh! They're not as big over here as in Japan/EU, but they are big there.

Warioware; might actually fall under the category of Mario, but the Wario games cater to a different demographic, so.

Star Fox, though after the fiasco with Star Fox Assault they might be laying low for awhile.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Still a solid moneymaker.

F-Zero, yeah.

Not to mention all of the almost-franchises like Punch Out! and Earthbound.

Honestly, if I was Nintendo, I would be making some big moves to try to snag Sonic Team and Dungeons and Dragons. 2E D&D, or specifically Wizardry used to be a big thing back in its day in Japan.



But anyway, why doesn't Sony and Microsoft try to follow the model? Halo and Call of Duty shows what can happen if you find and nurture a nice franchise for your system. It seems like it would make more money in the long run to develop your own series rather than pay Capcom and Konami so much fucking money for their shit.

[Koumei]

If I was to be given a current-gen console (I wouldn't buy one), I'd pick the PS3. JUST for Disgaea 3, srsly.

[Maxus]

Well, I can understand why Sony and Microsoft don't have franchises like Nintendo.

They haven't been playing this game nearly as long, and it's tough to hit the jackpot like Nintendo did.

A lot of Nintendo franchises date back to the NES. A few more to the SNES.

And they have Shigeru Miyamoto, who basically crapped out a bunch of golden eggs early in his career and still turns one out every few years.

And, guess what, a lot of the biggest Nintendo franchises don't go above T rating (or equivalent). And they're not worried about looking 'kiddy'.

Whereas Sony and Microsoft seem to be pushing mature/realistic-looking games and don't have any of the charm that Nintendo's franchises do.

[Draco_Argentum]

My point is whether games now and in the future actually need that much extra resolution.

Resolution, no. 1080P is probably more resolution than your eyes can discern at normal living room couch distance on a reasonably big TV. Graphics still have a long way to go before they're photo realistic though, we can have several generations of hardware without needing 3D (the glasses type) to stretch the graphics processor.

[Murtak]

Nintendo releases consoles with less focus on "moar pixelz" and instead add a new feature or two. Modern PC and console games require staggering amounts of work just to actually use those graphics capabilities. Textures, while not truly hand-crafted, still require manual work. Modeling and animation require even more. Thus Nintendo games require much less resources to produce. I wouldn't be surprised if a Wii game required less than 10% of the manpower of a PS3 game.

And speaking for myself I vastly prefer a game with merely adequate graphics and a new core mechanic over a game with nothing new except a higher resolution and quarticle-sliced bumpmapping. On top of that the PS3 draws, what, 50 times the power of the Wii?

[Parthenon]

who in their fucking right mind pays money for a game that lasts ten frigging hours? What the fuck?

I know exactly what you mean. 10 hours is pretty shit in terms of length. But for me games tend to be played by at least 3 of us in the house, so thats already about the equivalent of 30 hours. Then theres the large multiplayer part of it: in ODST the invasion game mode is really good and we have played 90 minute long firefight games which only stopped because we had other things we had to do.

Compare this to how we played Disgaea. Only I played it at all, and I lost track of what I was doing and gave up 4 or 5 hours in, shortly after trying item levelling and forgetting what was happening in the main quest. Its one of those games I want to start playing again but I know I am unlikely to.

So, sometimes 10 hour games can last hundreds of hours: Left 4 Dead for example, and often hundreds of hours games can only take up a few hours.

Wait, this is more of a suggestion to rent games or borrow them before buying now.

[Koumei]

\
Compare this to how we played Disgaea. Only I played it at all, and I lost track of what I was doing and gave up 4 or 5 hours in, shortly after trying item levelling and forgetting what was happening in the main quest.

Then you are a terrible person.

In Disgaea 2 news, I levelled a spear up (in the logical way: by teleporting to a world contained inside it and killing the residents) and gave it to a level 200 warrior. She now does more than twice the damage of the level 300 main characters. Partly because I reincarnated her up the tree of "Warrior -> Elite Warrior ... -> Iron Maiden", so she has awesome stats whereas you can't reincarnate to "Second Tier Main Character". But mostly because items are just that good.

So now I need to level up the Sexy Panties for Rozalin, because they give a huge bonus to her Shoot-People stat. I'm not even joking.

[Surgo]

Aside from the companies already listed making money in the video game market, there are some in the PC market still making money hand over fist; Epic and Bethesda come to mind.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I have heard Disgaea described here, and it doesn't really sound appealing. There are too many numbers flying around, I don't like numbers.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I got all the entertainment I wanted out of Disgaea by reading the script online. I gave away Makai Kingdom after the first hour, so I doubt I'd appreciate the actual gameplay of other games in the Disgaea universe.

EDIT: I picked up Rise of the Kasai new for $5. This might be about as good a ratio of entertainment to dollars as I got when I acquired GoDai Elemental Force (which may be the most unintentionally hilarious game I have ever played) for $3.

[NativeJovian]

Thus Nintendo games require much less resources to produce. I wouldn't be surprised if a Wii game required less than 10% of the manpower of a PS3 game.

And speaking for myself I vastly prefer a game with merely adequate graphics and a new core mechanic over a game with nothing new except a higher resolution and quarticle-sliced bumpmapping.

This cannot be emphasized hard enough.

Sony and Microsoft (and many PC developers, though they're harder to generalize) are locked in a death struggle over the 18-to-25 males demographic. Games like Halo and Final Fantasy and Madden football games really don't do well outside this core group. So the competition is fierce; you have to spend a lot of money making these games look impressive, because at the end of the day, there's not enough difference between Halo 3 and Killzone 2 to let one compete against the other if there's a significant difference in their graphics. That is, the games that "gamers" buy are similar enough that they won't buy them if they don't have good graphics; they'll by the one that is a next-gen FPS (or football game, or racing game, or whatever) and has great graphics too.

Nintendo has always promoted itself as a family company. That doesn't make it "kiddie" (consider RE4 or Eternal Darkness), but it does mean that it reaches a wider audience. 18-25 year old males play Mario games. But so do 10 year olds and 40 year olds and 18-25 year old females. By avoiding focus on the "gamer" demographic, Nintendo essentially reduces the competition it faces. Instead of trying to make a Halo or a Final Fantasy, they make games that are weird. They mess around with strange controllers (compare PSX, PS2, and PS3 controllers; now compare an N64, GCN, and Wii controller) and novel input devices (the Wiimote's accelerometer and DS's touch screen being most obvious, but going back to the Gamecube's GBA cable and the NES's Zapper lightgun as well). They don't make their games noticeable by being "like Halo/Final Fantasy/Madden/whatever but better", they make their games noticeable by being different.

This is much cheaper, largely because it's cheaper (but harder) to invent new concepts than it is to perfect old concepts. This works to Nintendo's advantage in a huge way, because it keeps their costs down while Microsoft and Sony keep consumers comfortable with more expensive games and systems. The PS3 is an insane piece of equipment; the 360 is technologically impressive as well. The Wii is basically two Gamecubes soldered together. Guess which is cheapest to make? The same goes for games -- because the attraction of Nintendo games is "do crazy awesome things with the Wiimote/DS stylus!" instead of "see the shadows produced by the lens flare off the blood spatter on Master Chief's helmet!", Nintendo doesn't have to spend small fortunes developing their games. But they get to turn around and sell them at prices that are set by Microsoft and Sony, who have to have higher prices to offset their higher development costs. This means that Nintendo makes more money per game sold than Microsoft or Sony does. This means that Nintendo can make their money back on fewer games sold, and that they can make more profit than Sony or Microsoft even if they don't sell as many copies.

Sony and Microsoft are fighting over the same relatively small group of customers. This lowers return due to increased competition, and drives up costs in attempts to beat out that competition. That slashes profits. Nintendo, on the other hand, focuses on games with wider appeal, lowering their competition while still letting them play the game at Microsoft and Sony's prices. This lets Sony and Microsoft bankrupt each other while Nintendo laughs all the way to the bank.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So how do Sony and Microsoft get out of the death struggle?

[NativeJovian]

By making themselves more accessible to other audiences. This means lowering the costs of their consoles (which means lowering its capabilities), and making games that appeal to more people. This will mean ruining their images as ultra hardcore gaming monoliths among the coveted demographic, which is probably why they haven't been willing to do it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You know what?

I'm playing the first Kingdom Hearts again and I realize that it's just not a very fun game.

I don't mean the controls or the gameplay--though I find both strictly average--I'm just saying that the game feels lifeless and kind of depressing.

Which is just kind of sad. Disney is not meant to be dark and angsty.

Kingdom Hearts II, with the exception of that mostly-bad beginning of the game, is a lot more fun to play. Even though there's just as much at stake, going through the worlds and searching for your friends doesn't feel like a chore or downer.

The level design is also a lot better, too. The World That Never Was, the Pridelands, River of the Past, and Beast's Castle are great examples of level design. The only location I liked better in the first Kingdom Hearts than the second is Halloween Town (though the Christmastown part almost makes up for it) and Hollow Bastion. The only areas I actually liked in the first game were the End of the World, Traverse Town, Agrabah, and Halloween Town. Which didn't make up for the pain of having to slog through atrocious levels like Wonderland, that dumb Tarzan Jungle, Neverland, Colloseum, and Monstro. Fucking Monstro. By contrast, the only levels I don't like in Kingdom Hearts II are the Underworld (which makes up for it by having one of the best plots in the game) and Hollow Bastion.

But yeah, it's mostly the sense of fun. I didn't really feel excited meeting Disney and Final Fantasy characters in the first one, except for Squall and Aladdin--the only ones whose intros were staged correctly.

My only real regret I had about Kingdom Heart's II other than the plodding opening was that O13, except for Demyx and Roxas (I'm not counting Axel, it's a travesty what they did to him in this game), really seemed underbaked. Which sucks, because they were handled with more menace and characterization in CoM which is a markedly inferior game. But Hades, Pete, Mickey, and Jack Sparrow steal the show.

The combat system of Kingdom Hearts II is way more exciting. Sora moves like a ninja, especially at the higher levels. I never liked how he controlled in the first game; he seemed too slow and floaty. The new Sora seems to be in much better control of himself and more aggressive. The reaction commands were a simple but great idea, turning the final stretch of the game into one of the most awesome I've ever seen in a video game.

I'm not saying that this game is for everyone; there's a TON of self-wank in this game, being that it's a Squaresoft game, and some of it gets really annoying. They kind of assassinated Riku and Axel's characters, too, especially if you've played Chain of Memories--which I don't really recommend.

[shau]

Wii is selling like crazy because it is a social device. People seriously invite other people over to their houses to play Wii. Not just young males, people in my Mom's retirement community frequently get invited over to play wii bowling. Then those people who went to a wii party by their own wiis.

[violence in the media]

By making themselves more accessible to other audiences. This means lowering the costs of their consoles (which means lowering its capabilities), and making games that appeal to more people. This will mean ruining their images as ultra hardcore gaming monoliths among the coveted demographic, which is probably why they haven't been willing to do it.

I have to admit that I would be sad if Sony and Microsoft went the way of Nintendo. I was disappointed with Nintendo way back in the early 90's when they elected to censor Mortal Kombat, especially considering Sega didn't. I still feel that they sacrifice technological advancement of the industry for profit and mass appeal. I can't fault them for that, but I don't have to agree with it or support it.

I'd say games like RE4 and Eternal Darkness are outliers for Nintendo and that they really are a "kiddie" company. I can't help but feel that every time Nintendo creates a successful populist game, it pushes gaming further back from the ultimate goal (in my mind) of simulated reality. Why spend all the time and effort creating the Matrix, when the next cel-shaded Zelda game will make $50 million and take 1/10th of the resources to produce?

I kind of feel (and I could be wrong about this) that, prior to the Wii, gaming culture had just about achieved critical cultural mass where it was going to start absorbing people. Instead, the Wii came out and expanded gamer-dom to include a wider variety of tastes, rather than gamer-dom imprinting itself on a new generation of gamers. The mountain came to Mohammed, as it were. That thing where everyone was astonished that old folks were playing Wii Sports? That would have been way more awesome if they were playing GTA, DoA, or Gears of War.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That thing where everyone was astonished that old folks were playing Wii Sports? That would have been way more awesome if they were playing GTA, DoA, or Gears of War.

l
And while we're at it, wouldn't it just be awesome if Star Trek had a resurgence in popularity among pre-teen girls and the 18-25 year old black male demographic really started grokking Twilight?!

[Ganbare Gincun]

Well, I can understand why Sony and Microsoft don't have franchises like Nintendo.

They haven't been playing this game nearly as long, and it's tough to hit the jackpot like Nintendo did.

Sony has had plenty of time to build up successful franchises, but that has never really been a major part of their strategy. Their strategy used to be "flood the market with games", which was very successful. Even today, people still buy a ton of PS2 systems because there are tons of cheap classic games floating around that they can pick up for practically nothing. They don't look as good as contemporary games, but the gameplay is excellent, and that's what really counts at the end of the day. Unfortunately, Sony's current strategy seems to be "give them a Blu-Ray player and maybe 4 or 5 good games" and now M$ is the one that's flooding the market with games and reaping the dividends.

[violence in the media]

That thing where everyone was astonished that old folks were playing Wii Sports? That would have been way more awesome if they were playing GTA, DoA, or Gears of War.

l
And while we're at it, wouldn't it just be awesome if Star Trek had a resurgence in popularity among pre-teen girls and the 18-25 year old black male demographic really started grokking Twilight?!

Hey, I'm sure the people who loved Firefly would have preferred it if more people loved that show than if Joss Whedon made a run-of-the-mill reality show.

[NativeJovian]

I have to admit that I would be sad if Sony and Microsoft went the way of Nintendo. I was disappointed with Nintendo way back in the early 90's when they elected to censor Mortal Kombat, especially considering Sega didn't.

I'd say games like RE4 and Eternal Darkness are outliers for Nintendo and that they really are a "kiddie" company.

The point of mentioning RE4 and Eternal Darkness was to point out that this isn't Nintendo policy anymore. In the 90s, Nintendo presented itself (in America, at least) as being for children, and had to work to maintain this image. They took it to the point of removing all references of alcohol and cigarettes from their games. (This is why you end up with lots of SNES-era RPGs having bars that serve nothing but coffee or people getting tipsy off tea.) This, largely, is no longer the case. Hell, even in the sacred cow of the Zelda series, Twilight Princess had an actual bar (as opposed to Wind Waker, which featured a "cafe" where sailors gathered at night to drink "coffee", or Majora's Mask, which had a bar that explicitly served milk). They're slackening up on the "family friendly" image even with their first-party titles; for third-party ones it's almost anything goes.

I still feel that they sacrifice technological advancement of the industry for profit and mass appeal. I can't fault them for that, but I don't have to agree with it or support it.

Well, sure. You're (I assume, at least) part of the demographic that Sony and Microsoft are gunning for. That's not a bad thing; I am too. I play my 360 a lot more than my Wii, even if I rant about how the Wii is a better/more successful system from an industry point of view. Saying "this is why the Wii is doing better" isn't the same thing as saying "this is why you should like the Wii more".

I can't help but feel that every time Nintendo creates a successful populist game, it pushes gaming further back from the ultimate goal (in my mind) of simulated reality.

That's not the ultimate goal of the video game industry, though. The ultimate goal of the video game industry is to make money. When inventing The Matrix becomes profitable, it'll happen, and not before. Besides, one could argue that there's nothing particularly innovative about simply using better and better hardware -- Nintendo, with its breaking out of the "moar polygons!" mindset, is probably doing more to expand the horizons of the video game industry than either Microsoft or Sony is.

Why spend all the time and effort creating the Matrix, when the next cel-shaded Zelda game will make $50 million and take 1/10th of the resources to produce?

That's a very good question, isn't it?

That thing where everyone was astonished that old folks were playing Wii Sports? That would have been way more awesome if they were playing GTA, DoA, or Gears of War.

Except that that would never happen, because no one except 18-25 males gives a shit about GTA, DoA, or GoW. That's the whole point. The Wii isn't obscenely popular among a wide demographic because the gaming industry hit some invisible line and became "for everyone" instead of "for gamers". It's obscenely popular among a wide demographic because it was designed to be, in ways that previous systems (even previous Nintendo systems) weren't.